More Than One of Everything
by charcoalrunes
Summary: A collection of oneshots dabbling in possibilities of the Frastle multi-verse. Ratings may very. Events definitely will.
1. The Coffee Incident

**So this happened. I'd blame Mogie and Nikki for it, but this time it's entirely my own fault. Frastle, that is Fringe/Castle, is far too interesting a crossover to leave alone. Thanks are in order to Nikki and Mogie for the basis of this particular idea, and general insanity.**

**And, hey, we all succumb to peer pressure once in a while.**

**This will be a catchall, a testing ground for different ideas, seeing what will stick, what won't. I welcome any suggestions/requests too.**

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><p>Twenty-nine hours. Twenty-nine hours without a body drop, eight of which Beckett actually spent sleeping, but even heavy snow couldn't keep someone from killing someone else.<p>

Beckett trudged to her car through the snow, which had long since lost its pristine glitter, blackened here by the street, a stunning contrast in red back behind her. With numb fingers, she fumbled a bit with her keys, opened the door, and reached inside for the coffee she'd bought on her way to the crime scene. That'd been a couple hours ago though. The coffee was lukewarm.

Beckett pushed her scarf down to her neck and bit her lip. Lukewarm wouldn't do the trick, especially not before the sun was even up. She glanced around, ducked into her car but left the door open. She worried her lip again.

It was worth a shot. Walter Bishop might be a strange man, but his trend of being right tugged at the logical side of Beckett's brain. The side that knew she'd need to heat up her fingers before they froze through like Popsicles.

Okay, that was an exaggeration, but damn, it was really, really cold.

And she had the ability to do something about that. It was that something small she'd promised Bishop that last time they'd spoken.

Beckett scanned the area again, making certain her team was still taking inventory of the scene, that no bystanders were scoping out the incident, not that anyone in their right mind would be outside willingly in this weather.

Quit stalling.

Right.

Beckett glared at the paper coffee cup. Decided to tone it down a bit and softened her features. She didn't need to over compensate.

Her brow knit in concentration anyway, willing the dark liquid to reheat. Maybe she'd get it at just the right temperature. Hot enough to scald a bit, but not deaden her taste buds for the rest of the day.

A bubble! She got a bubble. At least that sounded like a bubble. She removed the lid, but no steam rose.

All right, a little longer then.

Tilting the cup away from her face just in case, she zeroed in on the sliver of coffee she could see, picturing the steam in her mind, hoping this was the right method to trigger whatever innate abilities those cortexiphan trials had enhanced. Maybe she needed a…

Someone fell into the open door, nearly shut it on her knees, and hissed loudly, "You're doing it again, aren't you?"

With a gulping burp, coffee exploded all over the steering wheel, dashboard, windshield. Splatter freckled her face.

"Castle!" she hissed right back, swiping her coat sleeve over the little dots of angrily hot coffee on her face.

"Oh," he said, rather dumbly, entranced as rivulets steamed down the windshield. "Sorry."

"How did you—? Castle!" Beckett threw the empty cup at him. It bounced off his forehead, but that got his attention. All the riveted attention he'd given the apparently utterly fascinating sight of her messy car interior. Now on her. "Castle, I'm _behind_ the _ambulance_! You didn't even see me walk off! How did you even know I was here?"

Castle looked affronted. For all of two seconds. Then he reached across her, practically in her lap, for the glove compartment and snagged a handful of napkins.

"Beckett," he said, very seriously. Except that stupid smirk on his face ruined the tone. "You should know by now that I always know when you're in the middle of doing something cool. And hot." His eyebrows danced as he plopped the napkins in the coffee puddle. "It's like my own superpower, and I think it's a little bit cooler than yours."


	2. The Instant Microwave

**Mogie's fault. Gonna go ahead and say this is in the same universe with The Coffee Incident. Cause Mogie apparently has camped in my head or something.**

**Never written in a kid's point of view before, let alone a seven-year-old, so please forgive any…oddities.**

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><p>Sitting at the kid's table eating lunch, Katie watched as Mr. Bishop—or Walter as he told her to call him, but mom always told her to call older people mister or missus, so she listened to her mom instead of Mr. Bishop—left the classroom.<p>

The room smelled funny, kind of like when someone was rude in their car and made the tires scream. She hated that smell. Mr. Bishop said she didn't need to worry about it, but she wasn't worried. Just curious. Like when he asked her to sit down in the chair and held cards in front of her and asking what the picture was when she couldn't see it.

A couple times she guessed right. She was really proud of that. He was too. She could tell.

Now Mr. Bishop was quiet because the microwave exploded. The other kids didn't ask him questions when he was upset. Katie did.

She dropped her peanut butter and marmalade sandwich and scooted back. The other kids, only three others, looked at her but went back to their lunches. Katie couldn't stand not knowing. And Mr. Bishop never got angry at her questions. He actually smiled most of the time, and said she asked very good questions.

Katie followed where he left into the hallway to his office. The door wasn't closed and he was inside, so Katie walked right in.

"Mr. Bishop," she said, and knocked afterwards because that was polite.

"Yes, Katie?"

She stood in front of his desk, but couldn't really see over it. Only when on tiptoes. "Are you upset because James broke the microwave?"

He smiled and came around the desk to sit in the chair she usually sat in. "Not at all. In fact, I expected as much. James is a volatile young man."

"He's very noisy and doesn't listen."

"No. No, he doesn't. But it all works out in the end."

Katie watched as Mr. Bishop stood and dug around his desk, finally pulling a tin box out of a drawer. A lunch box, but not an interesting one. No pictures or anything.

"In fact, this leaves you, Katie, with a perfect opportunity," he said as he took out a thermos and poured the soup out. Katie didn't like soup, but he ate it a lot so she didn't tell Mr. Bishop that.

"Now," Mr. Bishop smiled, "concentrate on the soup and see if you can warm it up."

She looked at him. "You want me to be a microwave?"

"Well, it's the perfect time to try since we don't have one anymore. And I'd like to see what else you can do."

When she stared at him a moment longer, Mr. Bishop shifted the thermos lid closer, quietly asking her to do as he asked.

Katie sighed, and pushed her hair out of her eyes so it wouldn't tickle her forehead while she concentrated.

It was weird, using her abilities, as Mr. Bishop called them. Like rubbing your hands together really fast to make heat. Or watching a movie with the sound turned way low. The abilities were there, but not really _there_. It was frustrating. Like right now with the soup. She frowned. Mr. Bishop was talking, she thought, but couldn't hear him over that sound, like someone whispering in her ear. It tickled and she couldn't hear what it said very well, but suddenly that noise was quiet and steam curled over the soup.

She'd done it.

She'd done it!

Katie leaned forward, nose almost in the soup. Steamed warmed her face, made it a little wet. She looked up at Mr. Bishop, grinning.

Warming something up was new.


	3. The Paternal Answer

Hospitals never intimidated him. Rick got stitched up there a few times in his life, and he left one with a tiny Alexis in his arms. So _going_ was easy. Trick was the leaving part. Sometimes chances of leaving the hospital in the same condition as you went in suddenly weren't an option.

God, it's not like he'd died. He assumed. He was still here, still breathing.

About an hour ago, probably more, Rick had struggled against a heavy, warm unconsciousness and yelped, horrified at the blurry image of a hovering nurse. They gave him sedatives. He woke a second time more like a gentleman than a trapped animal. (With a blonde, from what he could tell, at his side, and that disappointed him.

"Welcome back to the land of the corporeal, Rick," she'd said, and the next moment Beckett—_Kate_—was watching over him. Rick couldn't see her, but her scent beat the brisk hospital sterilizers into subdued submission. Sadly, his mouth hadn't worked to let her know that.

She stalked out after he made a half grunt of frustration, pausing to brush his fingers. He smiled. Tried to anyway. Wished her good hunting.)

Rick felt like hell. Like he'd vacationed in hell, tossed a few boulders around for good and unreasonable measure, and then swallowed hot rocks for a late night snack.

Then again, anything beginning with the nonchalant introduction of a cow ("Is that a cow?" he'd asked.

"Oh yeah, that's Gene.")

—couldn't possibly have any other ending worse than this. And all in just two days. Two days. Seemed longer, despite him having no recollection of the past ten hours or so. Memory lapses, FBI agents, mad scientists and unmistakably evil bad guys. All the elements ripped right out of a science fiction novel, a well-planned story of impossibilities and more questions than he cared to ask. Except it actually happened. To him.

All because of a sudden revelation, a spur of the moment decision, a mystery he wanted to solve. That line of thinking had worked well for him in the past. This time though? And he thought shadowing the NYPD was dangerous. Working alongside Jordan Shaw didn't compare to this horrifyingly, eye-opening unfeasibility.

Except. It was real.

He'd laugh a bit manically if laughing didn't set his stomach aflame.

"Dad?"

Rick pulled from his thoughts. Alexis already lost her dad once today, though she didn't know it exactly, so he had to be there for her now, not get wrapped up in morbid hysteria.

He adjusted his shoulders on the pillows so he faced her better. "Yeah, pumpkin."

"So." Alexis whispered because loud noises hurt his ears. She waited, a haggard droop settled on her shoulders that didn't belong on someone her age.

Rick squeezed her hand, cold in his own, but his skin was still too warm for normal. Not feverish exactly, no fever symptoms, just too warm.

"So," she began again, stronger this time, but quiet. "This…I mean, he's your…dad?"

Ah.

So that's what has kept her quiet after making absolutely sure he was as all right as he could be under the strange circumstances. Should have known. Her grandfather. The biggest mystery in her life finally had an answer.

"Yeah," Rick said. "My dad."

"My grandfather." Alexis chewed her bottom lip, and Rick wondered when she'd picked up that habit. "Did he know about you? Us?"

Maybe at some point.

"Not sure, sweetheart." Rick drug his hand out from under hers, and covered her curled, loose fingers. "Never asked."

A light in the back of her too-gray eyes (a possibly permanent side effect: vision distortion) slowly crept forward. "Can I meet him?" She almost sounded breathless.

No. _God_, _no_.

The immediate answer seized his throat, part consideration, mostly abject terror at the mere notion of Alexis anywhere near that man. That man who somehow got Rick tangled up in a mess that far outreached his own perspective. That man who filled the illusive gap in Alexis' family tree. The man who far surpassed any imaginings, any nightmares Rick could scare from the darkest corners of his imagination about who his father was. Is.

Inventor of Whipped Cream. Right.

But. Was it really his father's fault? Wasn't Rick the one who overstepped the boundaries? Again.

Rick took a slow, deep breath that tasted like smoke, and released it.

The man who was still family, regardless. At least he came with an uncle for Alexis. With a…brother for Rick.

Oh boy. That still got him the most. A little brother.

Rick managed a lame, "Uh," but his mouth hung slightly open in surprise when the curtain surrounding his bed whipped back.

Beckett, Kate, dark eyes—with more green in them than Rick remembered—ablaze, and even more intimidating with the boys at her back, fumed.

"So, _who_ the hell is Walter Bishop?"

**~*~X**

For Nikki.

Her insistent idea. It's crazy enough for me to enjoy playing with.


	4. Intrusive Cerebral Disruption pt 1

**The Most Intrusive Cerebral Disruption Yet pt 1**

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><p>Officially she was fine. Unofficially, Beckett was loosing her mind.<p>

The folder on her desk confirmed it.

New case today, a not too cleverly disguised pop-and-drop. The folder, musty and brown stains curling the edges, surfaced as the victim's file from his younger days. According to online records Cecil Calwrinsky had a rap sheet that read like an America's Dumbest Criminals episode racked up within a three year period until, twenty-five years ago, most of those charges were dropped or dismissed. Cecil hadn't been booked since. Something in those records, from the life he once lived, dropped or not, had to speak for why he was found, three rounds in his chest and a day's old black eye.

She'd asked Ryan to find the folder forty minutes ago, but got called about a potential witness stepping up, so she sent he and Esposito, and buried herself in creating their fresh murder board. Capped the marker when she finished, turned to her desk and there was the folder. Waiting.

With a thumb and finger she flipped the folder open, found the cocky face of Cecil trying not to grin. Younger Cecil, but those eyebrows were his most recognizable feature, and apparently hadn't changed.

She called Ryan. He and Esposito were just pulling into the parking garage; she heard the car engine cut off, their doors open.

And Castle was still on lunch run, had texted her ten minutes ago about the traffic and never leaving right at noon ever again.

Okay.

Staring at the folder as she sat, Beckett wracked her brain as nonchalantly as possible, knowing for a fact she never left the bullpen and that she had completely lost it. Retirement wasn't even a speck on her horizon either.

She needed coffee. Now.

Her cell rang.

Leaping at the prospect of information—not to cover her startled twitch—she snatched the buzzing device up.

"Beckett."

"_Hey, it's Ryan. I'm in the record's room, and I can't find our guy's file._"

"Yeah, I have it." Cleared her throat. "I already got it," she said, quicker, firmer, falling back into the line of duty, the other mystery shoveled to the back of her mind. "How'd it go with our potential witness?"

Ryan puffed into the speaker. "_We got nothin'_. _Turns out the woman _was_ in the park around the same time as our victim, but she witnessed a mugging in the exact same spot. Our guy had his wallet and cash. But she ran to the convenience store down the street to have the owner call the cops, but when I showed her Calwrinsky's photo she didn't recognize him. Said it was a woman getting mugged by,_" he paused, probably to flip through his notepad, "_by a 'scary-looking guy with a dark Mohawk and light sideburns'_. It was dark and they were in the shadows, so she couldn't see the actual colors."

Beckett frowned, worried the inside corner of her bottom lip. "She could be confusing the victim and attacker."

"_That's what we thought, so Esposito_—"

There was a small scuffle, Ryan barked, "Dude!" and Esposito spoke next.

"_I'll fill you in when we get there._" He handed the phone back at Ryan's protest, and Beckett heard him tell his partner, "_We're on the elevator. It'll take like two seconds—_"

With a head shake, ignoring for now the open folder and Cecil's smirk, Beckett swiveled the chair to take a break room jaunt for some much needed caffeine when her hand, retracting from setting her phone down, knocked a warm mug of brown liquid to the floor.

Hot coffee splashed across the toes of her shoes, the bare tops of her feet. She yanked her legs back, hissing. "Shit!"

Heads turned as she danced lightly over the spreading spill, scooped up her mug—her _freaking_ mug—from the floor. Someone shoved paper towels into her hand as she slid her chair around the widening mess.

"Okay there, detective?"

Jeb. Officer Jeb. Southern guy. From one of the Carolinas. Nice guy. He looked concerned.

"No, yeah." Beckett sat, swiped the towels over her feet first, the skin an angry pink. "Just forgot my coffee was there."

Officer Jeb's brow pinched, formed a lopsided 'V' on his forehead. Thinking she was overworking herself, no doubt. Not like everyone else in this precinct and any other didn't. Jeb said nothing, just lopped to the bathrooms again for more paper towels.

He returned while she toweled out the inside of her shoes, and she thanked him snippier than she intended, but he nodded, dropping the wad on the puddle.

Okay, this was just too weird. Weird didn't begin to cover it. Crazy. Impossible. Castle would have a better word for this.

Was Castle back yet? Disappointment overruled dread when she didn't find him at the elevators—the boys were walking up though, both frowning. Wonderful.

For a brief, powerful second, Beckett wished he was, could picture Castle right in front of her.

Someone gasped. From all across the room weapons, hers and Jeb's included, trained on the sudden appearance of—

"Castle?"

Castle rolled backwards, as if fallen after a chair was removed right before he sat, complete bewilderment frozen on his face.

"W—" He leapt to his feet like a terrified cat, hands out like he could ward off whatever just happened. "_What the _hell _was _that_?_" Wild eyes flicked over his new surroundings, fell on her. "_Beckett?_"

Out of pure amazement Beckett was the last to lower her gun, after Ryan tapped her forearm. Gaze locked on Castle, she holstered the weapon.

No one could fault Castle for sounding like a shrill teenaged girl.

None of this made sense.

**~*~X**

For Mogie.

This one got completely out of hand, so I'm splitting it into two parts.

I take suggestions and such for these, so fire away.


	5. Kate watches Fringe

**Kate watches Fringe**

On the elevator ride down Castle could tell this was serious. Kate had called an hour ago for him to come meet her at her building, and on her day off no less. She was on edge all day yesterday, and Castle could pinpoint exactly when this sudden drive had started to simmer: after she checked her phone during lunch. Hardly said a word afterwards, aside from wrapping the case up with a fervor he hadn't seen since she got back on her mother's case after getting shot. But this was different, and of course he would be able to tell.

As they rode down in silence—a very loud silence on his part because who wouldn't be horribly curious as to what this woman was up to?—Castle fidgeted and cast glances at her in a not subtle way. Finally it worked and she turned her determined gaze on him.

He asked, blurted really, "What's going on?"

"We're going to California."

Castle blinked. California? Again? Against orders? Is that why she's going on a day off? Nothing had happened that required they take a trip to California, and the movie premiere wasn't for another few months, and, briefly, he imagined an entirely not plausible scenario in which Beckett—Kate—was dragging him off to…

Another glance at her face, fierce and frightening in that cute way, cut off that fantasy in its tracks. This had to be work related in some way.

Castle suddenly paled, his finger numb. She hadn't found another lead without him, had she? About her mother? Did…had she also been looking at the case behind _his_ back? She wouldn't, would she? She didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole again, she'd said before, but what if…what if she was tired of waiting?

In a dizzying swap, his whole body swung from cold and numb to warm and very not numb and excited and maybe more than a little terrified and other things he didn't want to name at the moment

He worked moisture into his mouth before asking as calmly as he could, "Sooo what's in California this time?"

Her jaw clenched, flexed, and she opened her mouth but the elevator doors dinged so she darted out like a woman on a mission and all Castle could do was follow like he always did, always would.

They climbed into her waiting car and she shot them into traffic slightly more recklessly than normal.

Castle was about ready to burst, beg her to tell him what was going on, when she sighed a long-suffering sigh that really did nothing to assuage his nerves but he'd take it anyway.

"We're going to California to speak with someone," she said, strangling the wheel.

From his angle Castle spotted the case in the backseat where her gun was stored for travel across state lines in an airplane. She was _really_ serious.

"Beckett. _Kate_."

"They're canceling it, Rick! Alright? It's not—" Beckett took a deep breath, let it out, and whipped the car into the next lane to take an upcoming turn. "It's not been announced yet, not officially, but it's on good authority. I want to make sure that doesn't happen."

Chest tight, leaning forward from the pull of sudden braking, Castle stared at her profile. "What? Who's canceling what?"

A lip-gnawing pause. Another breath. Then a growl, "Fringe. FOX might not renew it." She shot the car forward the moment the light turned green. "They're _not_ doing this to me again."

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><p><strong><strong>Mildly edited version of what was posted on Tumblr.<strong>**

**Sometimes I don't even know what is going on in my own head.**

**'Tis a lovely place nonetheless.**


	6. Snow For Leaves part 1

**Snow For Leaves**

**Part 1**

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><p>Far as Kate Beckett and Peter Bishop were concerned they couldn't have fallen into a more remote element. Kate hated it for no other reason than lack of choosing the destination herself and found zero redeeming qualities. Peter cheerlessly enjoyed it and found the bitter cold a perfect external balance to the bitterness freezing in his chest.<p>

Neither knew the other inhabited the same city. They never crossed paths, never spared each other glances from behind their respective shaded goggles (behind which, at this moment, Kate's nose itched like crawling fire, but clumsy gloves, tight passenger space, and jostling prevented respite) and they never bumped into each other while one left a store as the other entered (which Peter did at this moment, enter a bakery, and the baker's smile waned into familiar weariness).

It wasn't serendipitous, had nothing to do with fate since nothing like that existed. Peter and Kate didn't believe in predestined anything because the rest of the divided world refuted it repeatedly with characteristic vicious fervor. Separation, isolationism, and paranoia cultivated by a severely inordinate echelon of self-preservation and barefaced wantonness pervaded, as it had for centuries, sharpening like a fine blade until every back was, at least once, pierced and bleeding. Fate had nothing to do with how much one gained, how much one kept, or how much one lost. Only capability did that. Intelligence, ruthlessness, a keen eye and, most important of all, willingness. Which, for both Peter and Kate, required they temporarily reside in the freezing, curved western jut of the northern continent in the western hemisphere in the freezing cold country of Baranov.

The capital of Baranov, Bering, sat at the lip of the peninsula, flirting with the Chirikov Sea. This far north, mostly by choice, cars were a rare and even then not often used commodity, aside from specially crafted snowmobiles and snowploughs that also occasionally doubled as taxis. It was in one of these snowploughs where Kate, sullenly huddled inside mountainous clothing layers, accidentally had her boot spat on. A strangled gulp of disgust escaped her throat. The driver's crescendo of hacks and coughs, impressively sordid if she was so inclined to think that of repulsive half-gags, ended up soaking into the laces. No twenty-three year old woman wanted a gnarled man's phlegm fused to their shoes, but she sucked her anger to her bottom lip and clamped it in her teeth, remained otherwise silent. Her fingers drummed, agitated. She could have stopped him right then and gotten out, and she certainly wanted to. But she wanted to walk to her destination—a firewood warehouse of all places—even less.

Walking anywhere in Bering was, to a foreigner especially, a chore. Not entirely because of reliable snow, but because of the lengths locals had gone to shelter from the cold. Bering in particular developed a unique web of ground level tunnel-like walkways that replaced regular roads. Like veins, walkways throughout the heart of the city flowed with pedestrian traffic, most extending shop to shop to shop. Unlike veins, the walkways crisscrossed, had some dead-ends, ran parallel, and were cryptic to anyone who didn't already know where they were going or had a good enough handle on the language to read the many directional signs. It was into a closed-off section of an older tunnel Peter shined his flashlight. He cast a shadowed grin at the older man who, with sessions of finagled befriending, begrudgingly allowed Peter access to the back of his bakery built specifically to section off the dangerous tunnel. Even at the age of twenty-five, like most young men, Peter still couldn't quite resist a possible deathtrap. Besides, he relished the jaws of compressed cold gnawing through his minimal, almost inadequate clothing layers, and this tunnel was a shortcut to the wood warehouse where a special order waited his retrieval.

Aside from importing certain specialty order tree logs to be chopped into little hunks perfect for burning in fancier fireplaces, Baranov remained one of five neutral countries in the world. After quietly seceding from the Motherland Baranov attempted no grabs for stakes in global markets, acquired no alliances, and kept loose strings around the borders, preferring to remain mildly to themselves. Baranov's harsh climate kept all but the most curious or most desperate anyway, creating an unassuming safe haven so long as authorities never caught wind of unwanted foreign trouble a visitor, or escapee, might attract. Which, again, for reasons pertaining strictly individual, brought Kate and Peter one hundred and two miles south of the Artic Circle, to Bering. Not fate.

Not when Kate dropped out of the plough taxi into a snowdrift level with her knees just as Peter shut the silver, rust-streaked warehouse door. Not when Kate swore as she waded through the snow and the plough kicked more at her back while Peter, teeth clenched, hunched over his injured hand he'd thwacked with the open office door right beside the entrance, willing himself not to shed tears and mostly failing.

No. It was all circumstantial.

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><p><strong>For Nat, whose unending patience unfortunately fed my unbroken habit of artistic wallowing and putting things off. Thank you for such an interesting and difficult story to write (and I'm not being sarcastic). This turned out extremely different from that first draft I showed you. Hope you still approve.<strong>

**I tried a different storytelling style for fun, but didn't expect the repercussions on the second half of what was supposed to be one whole chapter. It doesn't flow well enough (or maybe I'm just tired of looking at it, I dunno). So I'm breaking it up. Mostly to finally get this out, stop fretting about it just sitting on my computer. And because I can.**


	7. Intrusive Cerebral Disruption pt 2

**The Most Intrusive Cerebral Disruption Yet pt 2**

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><p>"No, no, you're right, that's completely out of the question," Castle said, pretending to not be disappointed, thumbs twiddling just out of Kate's peripheral sight. Having spoken—with vehemence and fair amount of hissing—her peace over his request to "appearify his jacket and the food" from the taxi too, Kate redoubled her silent intimidation tactics on her cell phone, waiting for that shrill confession.<p>

"Didn't care for that jacket anyway," Castle said. He leaned forward, then back, spread his hands in his lap and ran them to his knees, fidgeting.

Kate didn't spare him a glance this time. Well, not a long one.

She'd called Agent Dunham not five minutes ago, surprisingly reaching the agent on the first try, and briefly explained the situation. Ten minutes, Dunham had said. Ten minutes to get her division in order and pull strings down the line to the 12th and get Kate on the first plane to Boston. Kate couldn't even pretend to work.

The phone rang.

"Beckett." Kate started shuffled papers together like it was the end of the day, earning perplexing frowns from the boys. Castle was playing on his phone, bottom lip jutting slightly in concentration.

"_It's Dunham. Your Captain should be on the phone right about now. You'll be good to go. I hate to ask, but do you have airfare covered? Since this isn't technically case related I couldn't get you a flight_."

Kate glanced at Castle, at the screen on his phone. "I've e got it covered."

"Flight leaves in three hours," Castle said, finishing up and closing an app. He and Kate leaned together so he could speak into her phone. "Leaves at three, so we'll be in Boston around five."

"_Around five. Okay, either Peter or I will be at the airport to pick you up_."

Castle quickly settled into a relaxed pose, rubbing his mouth while murmuring, "Captain's on the move."

Kate said, "We're on our way," and slapped the phone onto her desk when Montgomery called her into his office.

His only words: "Go take care of it, whatever it is."

Leaving instructions with Esposito and Ryan to hunt down the driver—and their lunch—from whose taxi Castle had vanished and to let her know the moment they had the man and his outrageous story under wraps, she and an edgy Castle made for the parking garage.

Corner of her bottom lip between her teeth, Kate surveyed her open driver's side door, gripping the keys tightly.

Castle paused suspended half in, half out of the passenger's seat.

"Maybe you should drive," Kate said, slowly and evenly. Irritated at the inability to trust herself. She _felt_ fine. No dizziness, nausea, sudden weird ticks, or excessive irritability—that had been a fun day—just well founded worry and confusion. She could ramrod stubborn pride aside and take precautions in case this new mental development became unstable and for any reason she couldn't control the vehicle, endangering lives. Especially Castle's. So Kate outstretched the car keys, but didn't move until Castle rounded the car and took them.

To his credit, Castle acquiesced without celebration. Until he thought she wasn't looking. His face contorted with constrained glee. He composed himself for the most part by the time he slid the key into the ignition, but the glittering burst though his pores when the engine revved and he locked into reverse. Then paused.

"Castle," Kate said, shoving her amusement out with a snap. "We only have three hours, and I'd like to go home and pack an overnight bag just in case."

His eyes were closed. "Yeah, just give me a minute. This is a momentous occasion. It's like sitting and participating at the table in the interrogation room for the first time."

"Let's hope your driving isn't as disastrous."

His fingers danced over the steering wheel like it was made of gold. "No, I—wait, my first interactive interrogation wasn't—"

"Castle. Drive."

"Fine."

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><p>They rode first class. Separately. He'd purchased the tickets without noting the aisle sat between their seats. He wanted to change arrangements, whatever the price, but Kate shoved him on through to the terminal until they were seated, him sulkily and Kate huddled in the eye of her thoughts as they stormed in her head. Unbidden images of teleportation gone heinously wrong—so much for <em>Galaxy Quest<em> being a light parody—or, and she wasn't sure which was worse, external mind control and having no ability to exact her own will over her own body. Science fiction nightmares. And Kate still refused a nightlight. Not that she could even ask for one. Nothing in her training at the academy or even her active years on the force could prime her to escape her own mind. Compartmentalize, yes, but what the hell was she supposed to do when the compartments held no boundaries to the symptoms of her scientifically enhanced brain functions.

She can't believe she just thought that. And meant it.

Kate surfaced from her whirlwind to find the plane just now taxing onto the runway and Castle across an absurd amount of aisle drumming his fingers on the armrest of his seat, pensive and concerned. Kate would have reached across and touched his arm had the chasm between them not been so wide, and widening. Her fingers curled. She didn't know what she'd say if she had his attention anyway.

After take-off Castle ordered two waters, which Kate drank embarrassingly fast, giving herself brief hiccups.

"Hey," he said, his bottled water outstretched. Kate, breath held because that had always cured her hiccups, studied Castle's hand, his elbow perched on the armrest. She took the bottle, and their hands met comfortably in the middle. It wasn't a strain at all. Kate thanked him, and sucked down that bottle as well.

He tried to play with his phone, appear busy, but his mind was on her heavily, thrumming like a pulse slightly out of sync with hers. He'd successfully distract himself for a moment but his thoughts fell back, like a lighthouse in fog, in and out of her oversensitive mental awareness.

Kate didn't read minds like certain telepathic Martian superheroes. No disembodied voices in her head, or pictures pulled from someone else's. She sensed motion, kinetic biological electricity that bounced through neurons, shifts in emotion and thought pattern, anything with spark, energy, the natural state of being at a subatomic level. Theoretically she could do a great deal with these passive abilities, break the boundaries of changing room or coffee temperature so long as it wasn't too cold. Motion detection. Heightened awareness. Pinpointing a bug lazily crawling along the floor, feeling lies, truths, drowning in a sea of emotion held off by a dam of untapped power. With extreme concentration all in motion she could touch, contain, expand, alter, working out the muscles until she was tossing massive inanimate objects around like toys. It terrified her, steeled her resolve to minimize the abilities' use, make sure the budding telepathy never resurfaced. She'd read her cortexiphan trail file. Memorized every cliff note, footnote, side note scribbled on scraps of paper, picture and video recording. And none of those notes ever mentioned teleportation. At the apparent height of her facility she had never so much as transported an object across a room, much less city blocks. So this was something new, unexplained, unimagined. Which meant, and somewhere buried deep, from before she knew about cortexiphan and any of this fantastical reality, the old Kate balked, but she was mutating.

Oh God, Kate was mutating.

**~*~X**

**And it's even longer. Oy vey. The first part was three pages with a nice breaking point, so here are another three pages with a nice breaking point. Three is a nice number.**


End file.
